In addition to fluctuating business performance, 2019’s first half also saw staff fleeing banks by the thousands.
In the first half, six out of 20 banks reported pre-tax profit falling on-year. The banks include Eximbank, SCB, VietABank, VietcapitalBank, OCB, and VPBank. Van Anh reports on VIR.
Specifically, VPBank saw the biggest drop in pre-tax profit with more than VND2 trillion ($87 million), down 36 per cent on-year. Moreover, as of the end of June, the bank also made 1,986 employees redundant, a record number in the banking sector. This is completely contrary to its previous efforts to recruit a large number of employees every quarter.
In the second quarter alone, along with a fall in pre-tax profit, about 1,466 employees left their jobs at VPBank.
Meanwhile, Vietinbank’s total assets grew by 1.6 per cent to nearly VND18 trillion ($782.6 million), but its personnel reduced by 454. OCB also let 294 of its 7,081 staff go in the first half.
Explaining the huge drop in personnel, the banks said that employees commonly tend to leave after getting the year’s bonus payment, which makes the second quarter leaving season.
Different from VPBank, Vietinbank, and OCB, other banks like Vietcombank and VIB have kept recruiting personnel during the period.
According to VIR, Vietcombank currently has 17,848 employees, up 1,136 people on-year. The number of VIB’s employees as of the end of June was 6,208, up about 1,010 people.
In addition, MBBank also increased staff count by 739 while TPBank raised its number of staff to 523, Techcombank took on 529 employees, and Sacombank recruited 211 more.
By Van Anh, this article was first posted on Vietnam Investment Review (VIR)